This
Journal

December
1999

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November 1999

October 1999

September 1999

August 1999

July 1999

It's coming or it's gone or it's back again. We live inside these circles - a daily clock, the seasons of nature, the regular or liturgical calendar, the routine of a school year or a job - as a reminder that there really is no death so long as we remain within these circles. Nothing is ever lost. There's always another day, another chance. We believe this so deeply that we are honestly shocked to see how our bodies change, how dear friends age and die. Where did this come from, we wonder. We'll have none of this linear death inside our beautiful eternal round and round.

And yet some festivals, like this one marking the not-so-grand entrance of God into World, have accumulated such a store of memory that the celebration often takes on the peculiar flavor of a memorial - not of God, but of ourselves. We remember what this season, this day, was like when we were younger. It seems that things have changed since then, and we have changed. Christmas is for kids after all, and we have gotten big. There's no going back.

Well, here I go again. Mr. Smartypants thinks he knows it all. But we both know I don't. Do you like this time of year? I'm really feeling the loss of sunlight, come 3:30 or so when the day starts graying down. In A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel reminds me that Christmas was moved to the winter solstice in order to align the birth of Jesus with the birth of the sun, to encourage a conscious overlap of Christ and Apollo. Seems to me that these old folks who worshipped the sun were on to something. Our own big star is hard to ignore; we do it at our peril. I miss it when it's gone.

Do you like my Madonna up top? Not really mine, of course. It's a detail of a big piece by Titian, famous because he set The Lady off center and placed more prominently St. Peter, St. Francis and his wealthy patron's family members. But it's the kid that catches your eye because, aside from some angels way up above, he's the only significantly under-dressed figure. I think I'll save my thoughts on this business for another time.

Enough philosophy, theology, meteorology, history and art blabber for now. What do you want for Christmas? I really want nothing - well, nothing other than health and happiness for people I love. And whatever I get (even refrigerator art? yes) will be the perfect emblem of a love and a friendship that's more important than anything. (I can't believe I've gotten this old.) But I bet you've got some burning yearning for - what? Maybe you could submit your desires to Santa down below. Or maybe you just have a few things that Santa needs to hear.

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.
Garrison Keillor